


Let Every River Envy Our Mouths

by ifonlyiwaswittier



Series: Character Studies [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: And lots of it at that, Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Extended Metaphors, Hurt No Comfort, Insecure Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin), Insecurity, M/M, Mentions of Farlan and Isabel, Relationship Study, The Underground, lots of water themes, yeah no i was not gentle in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-04 00:58:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13353141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifonlyiwaswittier/pseuds/ifonlyiwaswittier
Summary: "O minutehand, teach mehow to hold a man the way thirstholds water."





	Let Every River Envy Our Mouths

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for language, sex (nothing graphic though), and canon-typical violence/Underground things.  
> I have too many thoughts for a note but you can read some thoughts on this here: https://ellswritesthings.tumblr.com/post/169631328771/let-every-river-envy-our-mouths

Levi knows arid is a verb. It was essential to his vocabulary in the Underground, curling around in his head and making it ache after too long without water. He learned this the same way he learned most things- from the same dictionary that teaches all those who lack that scorched best describes the way his insides burn the one and only time he vomited up some puddle water he’d drank in childlike desperation, that withered best describes a tongue after years of living with water all around, so much water that is seeps into walls and molds scraps of bread, but none of it clean enough to drink.

By the time he’s been in the Corps long enough to build some small sense of belonging, he doesn’t carefully measure how much water he drinks, how much he uses to bathe, doesn’t feel guttural panic when glasses at the dinner table run dry. But even then it’s still Levi’s private little joy to draw up bucket after bucket of cool, clean water from the well in the center of Headquarters. It calms his nerves, reminds him that even though he’s not safe, he’ll never be safe, at least he isn’t in immediate danger of dying from dehydration anymore. The well gives him the same bone deep satisfaction he got after taking a long, deep drink of fresh water the time Farlan lifted a canteen off some MP who’d come Underground not to protect, but to buy a quick fuck.

The memory of holding that canteen is so comforting, so intense in its pleasure, that Levi actively avoids thinking about the weight of that leather pouch in his hands. All it serves to do is remind Levi how broken he is. There is something broken in him and he knows this as clearly as he knows the meaning of arid, of scorched, of withered, as clearly as he knows that he’ll never feel that kind of joy again.

It’s nice to not want for water though. He doesn’t really want for much anyway, knows it’s better not to. He knows this, tells himself not to want over and over as Erwin hands him some sort of bitter wine in a glass so thin their calloused hands might break it, as Erwin keeps a respectable distance while introducing Humanity’s Strongest to gawking nobles, as Erwin deflates the second they get in the carriage back to Headquarters, like Levi is the only person who understands.

And Levi does understand. He understands arid and parched and unending want that’s better not felt at all. He understands that Erwin is just like that canteen, a source of joy so pure it’s a weakness.

The two men spend most nights in Erwin’s dim office, trying to assemble makeshift lives from the shoddy pieces they’ve been given. Some nights they play God, hunched over chess pieces carefully laid out on maps, deciding who to sacrifice to free humanity, to free each other, and it feels like they’ve been given puzzle pieces that were never meant to make a picture in the first place.

Some nights they fuck hard and fast on the shabby, hand me down couch in Erwin’s office or against his desk, their bodies covering the death notices yet to be sent out, because the pieces of their lives too sharp and too dull at the same time and this is the only thing that helps even the slightest bit. Those nights they stumble into the empty mess hall after everyone has left, avoiding eye contact as they choke down meat that reminds them just a little too much of the horrors outside the walls.

But Levi’s favorite nights are the ones they spend in Erwin’s quarters. He loves to watch Erwin finally, _finally_ , get some rest as he drifts in and out of sleep himself, all the while piecing together promises and apologies that all sound an awful lot like “I love you” before slipping out of Erwin’s bed and back to his own quarters right before dawn. He loves the nights when the clock in Erwin’s quarters, the one with the slow minutehand, is the only witness to the only pieces of Levi’s life that fit being slotted together.

When they’re entwined like that, so close that Levi wonders if he’s even his own person anymore, he gets panicky with overwhelming relief because Erwin is giving him something no one has ever given him before- a chance to be something more than a weapon. It’s nights like these when Levi silently, selfishly pleads to no one in particular to be given the strength to hold Erwin, to hold him like thirst holds water.

Some nights Levi thinks, if only for the time it takes the laggy minutehand to tick, that he might be able to. As a man who’s only ever known want, who knows it’s better and safer to now want at all, he knows this won’t end well because Levi does not know how to hold. He knows arid and scorched and withered. He knows how to pick a lock, where to stab, how to kill. He knows he’s not even worth the sum of his parts, that he’ll never be good enough for a man as great as Erwin. But no one ever taught Levi how to hold, only taught him how to crash.

Levi wonders who taught Erwin to crash so well because it often seems like that’s the only thing either of them know how to do. But after years of crashing, into danger, into roles to big for mere men, into each other, Erwin’s life doesn’t end in chaos like Levi always thought it would. He had imagined abrupt violence, one of those berries only grown in Sina bursting between Erwin’s tobacco yellow teeth. But in the end, nothing shatters- Erwin unravels.

He comes apart slowly, so slowly that even the broken minutehand that dutifully watched over their time together moves far to fast, so slowly that at times it’s hard to see Erwin is falling apart at all.

In the end, Erwin leaves in drips, the same way water leaks out of the only semi-intact bucket Levi could find to draw water from an old Shiganshina well, the way the hot water Levi laboriously heats slips through his fingers no matter how tightly he cups his hands.

It’s exactly the same as Levi’s been doing for years, drawing Erwin a bath after a hard day. He wonders why this doesn’t feel like the last time he’ll bathe Erwin, doesn't feel like it’s the last time he'll persuade his killing hands to balm, to soothe. He wonders why now, of all the times, he’s finally ready to say the silently pieced together promises and apologies that he convinced himself were worthless. He wonders if Erwin would have said “Levi” in that reverent way of his if he knew that someday they would be each others’ downfalls.

As he heats the last bucket he knows: the only thing that scares him more than holding Erwin is the possibility of not having him at all. He used to imagine himself holding his love close to his chest like an asset, like Isabel when she played cards in the Underground, lulling everyone into a false sense of security before taking all their money.

So fucking naive. Loving Erwin could never be an advantage. But god, it had been worth it.

He undoes his cravat- it’s the only cloth he can find in this hellhole that's suitable for coaxing the blood off Erwin’s quickly cooling body.

Levi thinks that maybe water was never meant to be held, especially not by him.


End file.
